Dungeons & Dragons - Stories of the Godkissed - The unveiling

The five stood in the Cavern of the Ultimate, in a circle. In the centre of the circle stood Orimus, body defiled and desecrated beyond belief. He sported a new gash, shaped like a bolt of lightning, running down his muscled thigh. It ate into his thigh, and showed off bone, thus actually managing to look exactly like a bolt of lightning. He was shaking his head and gesturing. The five stood watching him. They were all dressed normally; Ahk, Wizardsmurf, Garder'el, and Halaster all cloaked with their own unique cloaks, and Dahk resplendent in his new battle armour, shiny and black. He kept moving around, trying to get his body used to the armour. All their weapons, stolen from the greatest of hordes and armories, hung at their backs or waist. Ahk carried the new scimitar that was given to him by Freida Dirren, the legendary LeShay weaponcrafter. It was black, with a silver vein running along the sharpened edge, and had a river of blood running through it, giving it a deathly look. The pommel and handle were normal, or looked so. Dahk still carried his blades of Entropi, Garder'el carried his Staff of Balance, and at his belt carried three claws of Astranaar, the famed astral stalker. Halaster carried no weapon, and Wizardsmurf carried his Staff of Power. Standing around, the exuded confidence and power. But right now, they also emanated some fear.
"Do you know what you have done? Can you even begin to gauge the consequences of your actions?" said Orimus, agitated. Orimus never got agitated, and the fact that he was now was disturbing.
"What have we done wrong?" asked Ahk.
Orimus shook his head. "The whole of the realms is now looking for you. Good, bad, god, devil; they all want you!"
Wizardsmurf took a step forward. "I think I speak for everyone here," he said, glancing at all of them. They all nodded. "We have all lead lives of hiding. We have hidden and run and escaped our various pasts. We are frankly sick of that kind of existence. We want to show the Realms who we are, and we are willing to except the consequences of it."
Dahk stepped forward, drawing his blades. "Let them come, we're ready." he growled.
Ahk stepped forward, nodding. "I stand with them. Our lives have been thrown together, and now we stand together." He drew his sword, "Anyone touching a hair of any of their heads will feel the sting of my blade."
Wizardsmurf and Halaster came forward together. "We agree with Ahk. The party is our family, and we have grown to cherish their company," They both smiled in Dahk's direction.
Garder'el stepped forward, twirling his staff, his deep red eyes focused. "Together we stand, and together we'll fall." He put his palm out, and everyone followed suit.
Orimus shook his head and sighed. He whispered too softly for the others to hear. "Fear not enemies corporeal. Fear the insidious. Pride and jealousy and envy. They will murder you. Beware."

Dungeons & Dragons - Stories of the Godkissed - Dahk the Deer Hunter

The air was crisp and clean. There was a slight wind blowing through the forest, causing the dry leaves on the ground to rustle and swirl. In a sunwashed clearing stood a lone deer, slowly and gracefully grazing. About twenty feet away stood two large figures. One was clad in nothing but a few skins tied together and knee length fur boots. His long blonde hair was tied at the neck into a ponytail. At his waist he carried a warhammer, etched with powerful runes. The giant who stood next to him was clad in full plate mail, and carried at his waist a large powerful blade, which had a handle made of a vortex of energy. Looking at their faces, intently staring at the deer, one could easily tell which was the master and which the student. The mans face was intent and watchful, taking everything in. His sharp blue eyes were like polished sapphires. He stood completely still, checking with his tongue whether the wind was still blowing into his face, ready to move quickly and silently should the wind direction suddenly change, alerting the deer of their presence. The giant stood, jaw dropped, gaping at the deer, drooling gently. The man glanced the giants way and smiled. This would be fun, he thought.
"Why don't you try yourself," whispered Wulfgar. "I'm sure you have plenty of experience hunting creatures in the desert. This should be nothing compared to any of those elusive creatures."
"What? Oh. Yeah! Lots of experience in the desert. Hunted lots. Very easy." The giant blinked and continued to drool as he stared at the deer. When he saw Wulfgar moving away, he cringed. He'd never hunted anything in his life. But he was starving. He needed to eat.
Dahk inched closer, moving his massive bulk as silently as he could. Even then, he sounded like a dragon walking on loose gravel. When he was about ten feet away, the deer suddenly looked up, cocking its ears. Dahk instantly paused, trying to keep himself in balance. After a moment or two, the deer decided there was nothing and went back to grazing. Dahk moved forward again. The deer looked up again. Dahk paused again. After repeating this maneuver twice more, Dahk realised that he was close enough. Slowly filling his long pipe-like sandblaster with sand, he put it to his mouth and took aim at the deer. After a minute or so, making sure his aim was true, he let loose a volley of high velocity sand at the deer. It barked slightly before it died as the sand engulfed it, suffocating it. Dahk yelped in victory, jumping up and down a few times. Roaring in carnal pleasure, he walked up to the deer and looked over it. Then he saw what was wrong. He roared again, this time in agony, as he realised the entire deer was totally covered in sand. There was sand everywhere. Sighing in displeasure, which sounded like a tarrasque mating call, he pondered the problem. Then his little beady eyes lit up as he found a plan. Snapping his fingers in the air, he moved back a bit, and took a deep breath. Closing his eyes, he blasted the deer with a colossal gust of wind. Now, what he expected to happen, was that all the sand would get blown off, and he would have a nice, dead, un-sanded deer. But he didnt realise his strength, and as he blew, the entire deer was carried away. So imagine his surprise, when he opened his eyes, to be greeted by plain ground. His entire face scrounched up in befuddlement, and then he looked into the sky, and saw a small shape disappear over the horizen. A small deer-like shape. He screamed in displeasure and anguish and banged his fists on the ground, bruising them slightly. Then he sulked all the way back to the rest of the party. When he reached them, they were all on the ground, laughing hysterically. Seemingly they had all seen the deer as it passed over them.
He slouched on the ground at the edge of the camp, and began sharpening his finger nails.
"Ugh, damn deer. Wait. We're not through yet. I'll find you, and you'll be sorry. Oh yes, you will."

Dungeons & Dragons - Stories from the Underdark - Part 1

The Underdark loomed from all around them. It closeted them into the close confines of this one cavern. Over here, far under the surface world, the distinguishing line between night and day was absent. But that didn't mean that fatigue too vanished. The party was resting, and tired after a long walk through the winding tunnels of the Underdark.
The four adventurers had split up their watch to two of them taking watches in shifts. Wizardsmurf and Garder'el slept, regaining their spent energies, and preparing their minds for the next day. Dahk and Ahk sat facing each other, able to sense the other in complete darkness. The drow saw the sand giant in front of him in the turbulent hues of infravision and watched him gently fiddle with his armour straps. The giant was a large peaceful entity, who seemed to feel and understand the stone that was all around them. As Ahk watched him, he could see the large nose, the large forehead, and the small beady eyes, all sending out emanations of total calm. His massive greatsword lay next to him, within arms reach - should anything attack, and he seemed to move one hand towards it, just to reassure himself that it was still there. The drow smiled ever so slightly; the giant was one of the most peaceful and gentle creatures he had ever met, yet he had witnessed him first hand roaring like a dragon and culling creatures into two. The giant looked up, and returned the smile.
Dahk could sense the drow in front of him through the stone. And not surprisingly he hardly felt anything; Ahk could be compared to a statue. He returned the smile that he sensed Ahk giving him. He chuckled inside as he thought about the way Ahk could assume a fluid form quicker than he, Dahk, could think.
Suddenly, in the distance, in the direction of the tunnel mouth, he felt something moving towards them. Moving fast. A quick motion told him that Ahk had sensed it too and was on his feet and had both his scimitars drawn. Ahk curtly nodded in his direction and signalled the ground. Understanding dawning on him, Dahk picked up his greatsword, and then got up and charged at the nearest wall. Two feet from the wall he jumped, and instead of hitting it, he went straight through. Ahk took a deep breath, glanced at his sleeping companions, wondering if he should wake them, and then decided against it. He sheathed both weapons, and stood waiting completely still, fifteen feet from the mouth. The soft foot falls would've evaded but the sharpest of ears. He grimaced inwards as he realised what was coming towards him. Quickly he switched out of his infravision back to his normal spectrum. Dazed momentarily, he closed his eyes to get his bearings. When he opened them again, there were five dark cloaked shapes in front of him, spread in a line. He quickly threw out his senses for the giant, and felt him right behind the visitors, still waiting in the stone. The one in the centre walked forward, and threw back his hood. As his hood fell, a mane of bleached white hair fell with it. Skin darker than ebon, the drow in front of him was taller than most. His eyes were dark purple, and he smiled, exposing teeth that rivalled his hair for whiteness.
"Ah, finally," he said. "I get to meet the great Ahk'Sanaris. The defiled drow!" He spat and bowed in mock respect.
Ahk simply stood, not saying a word, but his head cocked as he suddenly realised that his sleeping companions were no longer sleeping. Smiling now, he said "I would recommend you lower your voice, or you won't live to regret it."
"And we must definately listen to the great drow, the second Drizzt Do'urden, musn't we!" he said in a loud voice, as he saw the scimitars. Then, in a hiss "You're days are - "
He didn't manage to finish the sentence as one of the drow to the left screamed. He turned quickly, to see a quarterstaff wielded by a lithe figure slap one of his drow into unconsciousness. His eyes wide, he tried to rally around his other four troops and run. And when he turned around, blocking the entire mouth of the tunnel was a huge giant clad in a gleaming white full plate mail, and brandishing a greatsword the size of a normal drow.
"Going somewhere?" he asked, nonchalantly. "I think not."
The drow commander turned to the other side to see a huge drider walk up the walls with one of his drow, who was all wrapped up in web. Turning back to Ahk, he looked at the him with pure venom in his eyes. Ahk still stood completely still making no sign of movement. Without thinking, the drow commander yelled and lunged for him. In a blur of motion, Ahk pulled out both his scimitars and slapped the drow hard on his shoulders with the flats of his blades even before he had reached him. The drow commander fell, unconscious. The two remaining drow searched frantically for an exit.
Garder'el and Wizardsmurf by now had finished with their victims and came to stand beside Ahk. Garder'el had a simple turban wrapped around his head, and his gith features stared expressionlessly at the drow. Clad in simple monk clothing, he brandished his fabled quarterstaff with supple ease. Wizardsmurf tramsutated as he walked from drider to Deep Imaskari. He reached Ahk and looked at the drow and raised his eyebrows gracefully, questioning their motive. Just as they were about to speak, the drow suddenly quitened, and stood completely still, their brows furrowed in thought. Quickly Garder'el and Wizardsmurf threw out their telepathy to intercept any messages, but they seemed to be too late, for the drow suddenly smiled deviously and split up. One ran towards the commander, and the other one ran towards the other two drow who had been stashed at the back of the cavern. Before the four adventurers could do anything, the drow had murdered their companions and killed themselves. Puzzled for a moment, they looked at each other in befuddlement. Until they heard the noise in the distance. Great, thudding footsteps were making their way down the tunnel, heading for their cavern. They quickly split up, Wizardsmurf and Garder'el moving towards the ceiling, climbing nimbly as if it were flat ground. Ahk moved deeper back into the cavern, and Dahk moved with him. All of them tensed, clutching their weapons tighter. Wizardsmurf's brow furrowed as he begun to waggle his fingers, preparing a spell. As they waited, the tension seemed to grow, and then finally, the moment carried itself.
From the mouth of the cavern walked in a huge creature, with massive blood red wings spread dangerously behind it. It's huge red body was naked save for a loincloth around its waist. Corded tendons jostled with each other creating a creature of total muscle. It carried a jagged blade which was shaped like a bolt of lightning. In its other hand it carried a whip. Its deathly black eyes gazed at the party with an evil glint. It smiled and bared fangs the size of Ahk's forearm. Standing an easy fourteen feet tall, it dominated the cavern. It walked forward and then to one side. Dahk tensed his weapon and smiled; one balor was a good fight. Suddenly there was a spike of emotion along the party's joint consciousness and he was puzzled. Then he saw the second balor walk in.
"Uh oh"

freedom

I want to be free,
Flying alone with the angels above,
In the air only me,
Flying alone and without love.

How much effort does it take,
To get off the ground
To fly into heaven,
Without turning around?

I wish I could leave,
And I'm soon going to go,
Waiting for the moment,
Where I'll be gone, don't you know.

the race is run, the deed is done

A father has just lost his son. In an accident, the boy died. The father is sitting in front of the grave, his eyes focused on the gravestone. Why, he asks. Why? Then he begins to pray.

My son, god bless you,
You died young,
A fresh leaf, still new,
Didn't have to see life's dung.

Do I have to tell you
That I miss you?
Fear grips my heart
What now is my part?

I see the world through black
Dark are my thoughts
A deadweight sack,
I am totally out of sorts.

You brought me hope
You showed me that
Relationships aren't a product of dope
Where now do I stand?

As hunter and prey,
Humans play this game
Everyday
How many times, and for what name?

Roles switch,
Hunted turns to hunter
Life's a bitch
You went before it hurt you

Goodbye, my son,
Good luck and
May god bless you.

He murmurs under his breath, "The race is run, the deed is done." And he places a single tear from his cheek on his son's grave, and gets up. To the woman standing a little way behind he nods briefly and coldly and signals that it is now her turn. She doesn't bother responding. The air is frigid.

famous last words

I sit on the windowsill, looking into the dimly lit room. Its a dark night, and the air is chilly. The moon is out, like a pale orb in the velvet sky. I sit still, my breathing slow, completely quiet, watching the man sitting by the dying candle. Scribbling furiously in a journal, he is bent over and facing away from me. Frequently, he casts furtive glances all around. He knows there is something amiss, but doesn't know what.
I chuckle silently. If only he knew, he wouldn't be sitting there, but running for his life. He had stolen from one of the most powerful mages in the city, and had believed that he had done it with utmost skill and subtlety. I shake my head, even a blind ogre would have been more careful. Obviously, my role in this matter is simple. He dies, and by my hand.
As I sit and watch this helpless fool, my mind begins to wander. For how long have I been doing this? I'm not as young as I once used to be. Warning bells begin to hum in my brain. I ignore them. I take my mask off, and scratch my beard. Why am I doing this? The warning bells are growing in intensity. I know that there is something wrong, but I still ignore it. My eyes lose focus of the man in the room as my thoughts move inward. What will I gain? One more kill, a little bit more money. My brow scrounges with thought. Would I like to die with nothing at hand but my dagger and some gold? I would hate it. But what choice do I have? Walk away. Leave the man alone. Do not kill him, and offer no explanation to the man who hired you. Do what you are good at, and disappear into the shadows. Find a different life in them. Suddenly starting, I nearly fall off the windowsill. Where did that come from? Thinking it to be some mental intrusion, I immediately throw up all my cerebral defenses, and wait. But there is nothing, and I can't discern any tampering having occurred. But such clarity is not natural. Shaking my head, I try clearing my vision by blinking. It doesn't work. But as my thoughts clear, realisation dawns. With a grimace I realise that it hasn't come from any outside source, but rather it is the culmination of my own darker thoughts. After every kill, with my blade running red, doubt seeps into my mind, and I wonder where the end of this bloody road is. That clear thought is a sign. The road is ended for me. I can no longer walk it. My mind is made up. I turn, and begin to walk away, and I find I can't take a step. Taking a deep breath, I look at the blade in my hand. Looking back through the window at the hunched figure, lust creeps into me. I close my eyes and try to steady myself. I have to walk away. But the lust is too great... Ok, maybe one last time. Never again, I vow. Turning towards the window, I slowly begin to walk, burying all the feelings that overwhelmed me only minutes ago under the lust. One last time... Famous last words.

looking at the waves

Looking at the waves, he sits silently. The violet horizon is still, and there isn’t any noise, save for the washing waves on the shore, and the sea breeze, blowing his shoulder length hair back. He just sits and watches, holding his knees in his hands. Its early evening, and the beach is deserted. The white sand is grey in the darkness, and it stretches both ways. His face is blank, but his eyes say a lot more than he would like them to. Two pools of tangible sadness, behind a wall of clear grey steel. Through his eyes, you could see the pain, but it was too hazy. His other features were too controlled to get any confirmation. But there was no one around. And he knew there wouldn’t be for a long time. So he sat, and just watched, and the ocean watched back. The ocean tried to scare him, or at least move him in some way, but it failed and after a while it just gave up. It just washed up onto the shore, and washed back. And the sun slowly set. And the breeze became stronger.

“You enjoy sitting by yourself?” said a small mouse.

He looked down next to him, and saw the little rodent, that he could’ve sworn wasn’t there a moment ago. But it was a passing thought; had no relevance whatsoever.

“Yes”

“Why?”

“No specific reason.”

“Really?”

“Well, I can’t really talk to people. I prefer being by myself.”

“You’re talking to me”

“You’re not a person are you?”

The mouse looked out at the ocean, hoping to see if there was anything it could glean of the boy’s personality from it. So they both sat for a while, looking out at the ocean.

“Why are you here?” the mouse asked, still looking out at the ocean.

“I don’t know. Why is anyone here?”

“I’m here because I enjoy the breeze. I can’t say why anyone else is here.”

The boy chewed on some imaginary grass, and remained silent. Then he took out a small wooden flute from under his sweater, and looked at it for a while.

“Sometimes I fall in love,” said the boy. “When I do, I keep talking. I can’t stop. And I say bad things, things that I end up regretting as soon as I say them. But I still say them. And then they fall out of love with me. Yet I still love them. For a long time after that. And I feel pain and sadness. So I play my flute.”

“Why?”

“I don’t really know. I just do.”

“Does it make you feel happy?”

“Relatively”

“Relatively?”

“Yes. I forget about all the problems in my life. I forget about my bad talking habit. I forget that I have become dependant on someone else for happiness. So I feel happy.”

“But when you put your flute down, everything comes back?”

“Obviously”

“Then aren’t you dependant on your flute as well?”

“My flute is never going to fall out of love with me. It’s never been in love with me. I’ve never said anything to it.”

“So?”

“What do you mean so?”

“I mean, suppose something happens to you. Some unforeseen circumstance that doesn’t allow you to play your flute after that. Then what?”

The boy was silent. The ocean breeze rushing up the beach went through the flute, creating a soft sound.

“I don’t know.”

“You’ve never thought about it?”

“That’s part of the reason I came here. I have thought about it, and here I want to just get away from it all. Nothing can happen to me on a beach.”

“You’ve come here before?”

“A few times.”

The mouse watched the dark sky, for it was dark now, and the sea was a dark moving mass that stretched behind the grey foamed waves and dull grey beach.

“Anything can happen to you here. If you come here seeking sanctuary, it is folly. Reality here is a bit different, true, but that reality is a double edged sword. Yes it is mellow and peaceful - as this beach is - most of the time, but that doesn’t meant that nothing happens. The chance of something happening is small, but should it happen, it would be monstrous in its intensity. Understand that carefully, before coming here again. You cannot run away from reality to come here. This is not an escape.” And with these words, the rodent walked away, into the darkness.

The boy still sat, and watched the sea, pondering the rodent’s words. Then he put the flute in his mouth, and began to play.

music

Holding my guitar in my hands, I watch the world. As I pluck strings, my mind wanders. It’s there, but not there. Every feeling passing through me is because of the music. But the feelings aren’t the music itself. It’s like sitting in a glass bottomed boat, looking into the ocean underneath your feet. I feel pain, anger, hatred, jealousy, love, beauty, torment, life, death, happiness, sickness, torture, envy, lust. It’s all there. But I feel it behind the protective shell of the music. They are like the essence of the emotion or the feeling, without actual involvement. I can feel what it feels like to be envious, not feel envy itself. A subtle difference, but a salient one.

A journey. Sitting in my room, playing my guitar, I travel all over the world. A single note could change where I am, what I’m doing, what I feel. A simple scale could have me sitting in a Chinese paddy field, an intangible observer. Just a change in the tempo, could have me all alone in the middle of the Sahara. Another scale could have feeling the sun and a gentle breeze of the Savanna. An addition of a note could have me sitting at home, in my bed, under my covers, and then suddenly the roofs gone, and I’m watching the stars. Mountains appear around me, it gets cold, the wind gets chilly, and then without warning, trees begin to sprout ever, supplanting the mountains, and a thick canopy forms overhead, and I’m in a rainforest. The only difference between my imaginary rainforest and a real one, is that mine is deathly quiet except for the gentle music that inspired the scence.

Pain. I feel a sharp pain in my heart. I know no solace in darkness or in company. Restless, I pick up my guitar. Face clenched, I lose myself in what I’m doing. Like a blind man running through a brothel guided only by scent, I run through my music. I stumble, I fall, I trip, but I don’t stop. I can’t stop. I know I have to reach somewhere, I know I have to expend what’s inside me or I’ll explode, I know I must do something, and I play. Mistakes lose their significance, as the raw emotion gets transferred. No one listens; I wouldn’t let anyone, but should anyone have, I would like to believe they would cry. I cry. I scream. I yell. I shout. I grimace. But everything is siphoned into the guitar. My face is expressionless. My body is motionless except for my hands.

Finally. I ask myself. I can do all this. I can journey, I can escape, I can watch, I can feel without feeling. I can do all this. But is it of any use? What does it give me? Something that I am dependent on. Something that I need. When you have something, the greatest fear you have is losing it. When you have something you need, that you cherish, that you require for survival, that fear becomes psychotic. To love, I must surrender myself to this paradox. Is it worth it?

The Scout

Watching comrades die,

Their cut bodies in his eye,

Their dying screams in his brain,

He rambles forth in pain.

His legs are cut,

Crawling in the dust,

His arms are bleeding,

News are his friends needing.

Rambling on with deathly sickness

His mind a home to dreamy visions,

Pain loses significance,

As things around him begin to dance,

Yet with a unreal drive,

To reach home does he strive.

Fierce loyalty pushes him on,

Teeth gritted with determination,

Thoughts of his folk,

Act as the final brushstroke,

On a masterpiece,

And give him peace.

He does this without his self in mind,

Earlier, and with ease, could he have died,

But he held on,

He pushed forth,

For you and me,

For his folk,

For his kin,

His sanity balanced on a pin,

Did he persevere.

The Scout is a legend.

hypocrisy

The world is round

When a man claimed so,

He was burnt.

The sky is blue,

When a man claimed so,

Was he burnt?

Discrimination they say

Is abolished.

Gender bias is taboo.

Your skin is not

The colour of your soul.

So these hypocrites claim.

Wolves in sheep’s clothing.

Paedophiles.

Drug pushers.

Society marks them with

A brand of disgust.

Calling them outcasts,

And unworthy.

Yet they allow these,

These hypocrites to

Laugh and drink

Make merry and love

The honest are branded

With contempt and vulgarity

By the same

Who toast to the hypocrites.

As Dylan said once.

“it makes me feel ashamed

to live in a land

where justice is a game.”

Modified,

It makes me feel ashamed

To live in a world

Where bias rules over truth.

rulers

Bejewelled chair that he sat on

Served as his kingly throne

He sat with elbow on knee

And head on elbow

Eyes fast shutting

He begins to drift

Into the Dreamland

Then he hears a story

About abuse and suffering

A subject voices a problem

Concerning death and decay

Rape and murder

Emboldened by these calamities

The man wakes up

He sees this an opportunity

To use his power

The power that he was born to use

The power that is above all

The power that needs no justification

That’s the power he was taught to use

Not subtle reasoning with his Lessers

Not sympathy and mercy

Not caring

Is this a king?

bullfight

I couldn’t see ahead. All I could see was the rump of a bull. A big black rump, shaking with uncontrollable primal fear. I wasn’t allowed to see anything else. My senses were divided, very acute and completely numb. I couldn’t feel around me; my legs were chained, my stomach had been growling for so long that I had lost feeling of it. I couldn’t see, except for the rump of the bull in front. But I could hear, and I could smell. Very well. Too well. I could hear the snorts from the bulls, the fearful short snorts, punctuated by heavy breathing. I could hear wild noises ahead. I could hear anger and fear. I could hear these things. I could hear hysteric and maniacal laughter. I could smell the sweat in the tunnel. I could smell the fear. It reeked like the strong odour of dead bodies. I could smell blood. I could smell fresh dung and strong fresh urine.

There was nothing inside me that prepared me for this medley of feelings that were reaching my brain. There was nothing that offered a solution or a way out. There was nothing that even offered any solace. And worst of all, there was nothing that told me what exactly lay beyond the rump of the bull in front of me.

Fear began to pump in my veins with a new vigour, and my body began to perspire and shake with a demonic frenzy. What is happening? What is out there? Why do I smell blood and fear? Why do I hear laughter? These thoughts culled through my remaining sanity with brutal ease. I began to thrash in my chains, and froth at the mouth. I bellowed wildly, knowing somehow that I was dead.

“We have enough as it is. This one is causing too much trouble. He won’t be of any use outside. Kill him.”

“But…”

“Kill him.”

TCHAK.

people

A handful of rice. The oblong ivory grains all just lying one on top of the other, in a helpless and accepting manner. A set of coarse brown hands holds them, weather beaten with experience. The hands, with black lines running through it like bold charcoal marks through a chocolate backdrop, look strong and able, like they have tilled the land. The man who owns these hands is a toothless old man, with countless wrinkles running through all his dark skin. He smiles, causing all his wrinkles to come together just under his eyes in a beautiful fashion. Holding out his hands, he offers the rice to the land, Mother Earth, as she stands in front of him.

A gust. The wind plays around with her hair, as she runs onto a small merry go round. The small child that was once in her, the same child with no inhibition or worry or angst or pain or suffering, jumps up onto the merry go round. The tall, beautiful figure is no longer tall or beautiful, but short and childish, and playful, as she holds the bars of the merry go round as it goes around, and shrieks with a long forgotten happiness. The innocence and love of life runs through her, and for a moment, she has managed to reverse time.

The fury of the ocean rages around him. His boat shakes and rocks, in the hands of the storm. The sure footing he has on his tiny vessel, and the love in his eyes as he looks out onto mighty ocean betrays the sailor in his soul. His strong hands grasp the nets as they are pulled in, but not with malice or hate, but gently. The storm wails and screams around him, churning and tossing water; all around him exists chaos and disorder, yet he remains calm. He reflects the storm, acts as the negative, maintains the balance of nature in his soul.

So exist three different people, all bound by society and circumstance, to believe and think, to learn and understand, to find and explore, their own tiny corners in this vast and diverse world. Are they truly that different?

waiting room 2

She was back, except this time, with no book or pen, or anything. She came with herself and her conscience and her will, and hoped that would be enough to hold her together. It had been over a week, and there were many questions she wanted to ask. Many things had troubled her, and she needed clarification. She went to a doctor for some explanation, and he had told her that she was hallucinating, and that he was very sorry to say it, but she couldn’t have heard anything. It just wasn’t humanly possible, he had said. Then how could she so vividly remember it? That feeling of “hearing” not as a separate sense, but as a part of thought itself. Lost in her thought, she didn’t hear the woman come in. But then again, she couldn’t have anyway.

The woman walked up to her, and touched her on her shoulder, and she started, her thoughts dissipating like a wisp of smoke. The woman was looking exactly the same as last time, with her very beautiful features, looking at her emotionlessly. Without a word, she began to walk away, indicating the other to follow her.

They reached the door, and the beautiful woman opened the door and gestured the other to go through. At a questioning look on the other’s part, the beautiful one shook her head; she would not be coming in this time. Closing her eyes, she walked in.

Still a fairly alien sensation, the music closed in on her, causing her to feel momentarily claustrophobic, but then it passed, and it surrounded her like a protective cocoon. When she opened her eyes, she saw him sitting there, looking completely ordinary, sitting with his guitar. He was playing it very softly this time, very gently. For a while, neither said anything, she sat down a little way in front of him, and waited. Then suddenly, the music stopped, and there was a silence that was as thick as a smog that suddenly settled in the room. Now truly feeling claustrophobic, she started, and thoughts began to bubble out of her incomprehensibly.

“Calm down. Everything is alright. Keep your thoughts under control.”

The silence was complete; nothing stirred, or moved, or made any noise. A silence like this complemented the music, both were utterly unearthly. Stilling her breathing, she held her thoughts in check.

“That’s better. Scary, was it?”

“Yes, very much so. Why? Why suddenly this silence?”

In answer, he pointed to the window, and gestured for her to go and look outside. Curious, she walked to the window, and looked out. Nothing out of the ordinary did she see; a squirrel scampering about on a tree, a bird eating a lizard and regurgitating it for her offspring, an ancient oak that was nearing its end. But nothing out of the ordinary. Her eyebrows furrowed, she looked out more questioningly, thinking she had missed something. But she hadn’t, there wasn’t anything she could see as an answer to why he had stopped playing. Maybe he was scared of disturbing –

“Don’t observe. Just look. What do you see?”

“I see a squirrel running, a bird feeding her young, an old tree dying.”

“What do you feel when you see?”

“At peace.”

“Why?”

She thought for a moment, and then pushed, “Everything is in balance.”

“As am I. The balance of Nature is unrivalled. That means not, that we must not maintain it in our souls too.”

How easy it was for him to say that, she thought. He’s stayed in this room all his life, and felt nothing of the bitterness of life. He’d felt nothing of broken love. Nothing of the struggle of life, of the unfairness of it all. How could he say something like –

“So much anger. So much pain. Do you really believe that I haven’t felt anything that you say you have felt? Do you believe that all you see in front of you is a product of isolation?”

She couldn’t respond. She had nothing to say.

“Sight is the most deceiving of all the senses, and thoughts based on sight can mislead with ease. Don’t let your sight blind all your other senses.”

She said nothing still. And neither did he; he just began to play again, softly. The music seemed to flow like a thick floating river through the room, coursing through the air with grandeur, leaving a tingling sensation in its wake. And it stayed at that intensity, soft and mellow, but with a solid backbone. His fingers seemed to caress the guitar and coax the sounds out of it, rather than actually play it, and the guitar was putty in his hands. Noticing her jaw had dropped slightly, she closed her mouth. His eyes were closed fast, and the music came fast.

All the questions that she had had all planned out and ready to ask, began to dissolve. She came in with the notion that she would figure out just what was going on, and just how everything was happening. Now, when she sat in front of him, and the music enveloped her, she couldn’t care less how it worked, or why it worked the way it did. She understood, on a very primal level, that she was doing something extraordinary, but there was no sense of pride in it, no sense of supreme accomplishment or superiority. There was just a simple, humble sense of peace.

waiting room 1

The waiting room was tiny. A small cubicle of no beauty or love, it sat there, just in front of the door, and created an impression in any visitor that they should not be here. No paintings or nice photos lined the wall, no memories displayed here. It was a desolate place, barren and dry as an arid desert and dead as a graveyard.

The woman sat resolutely in one of the only two chairs in the room. She sat with nothing in her hand, but a small notebook and a pen. She sat determinedly staring at the opposite wall, waiting for something to happen. There was nothing special about her, she was medium in build, medium in height, medium in looks, medium in voice, medium in beauty, but for some reason, she hadn’t been given the same average measure of thought. She had a tremendous amount of thought in her head, an ecosystem of ideas was her mind. And for some even odder reason, she had a love for children, having none of her own. She found them to be the centre of all life. The child’s mind, according to her, was the most beautiful thing on this planet. Where an adult’s judgement would be fettered and clouded by the shackles and fog of prejudice and bias, the child’s mind was like a breath of fresh air.

And so she had come here, to see a child. A child who had been locked away from society. A child who possessed such godly skills, that he could not be named as human. But as the rest of us are human, and the fact that we have jealousy and envy aplenty was the cause for this child to go into hiding. She needed to know what he had. She needed to understand to a full extent what the – actually, any – child was capable of. The mystery of this child had long ago been given up as being just a hoax and nothing real. But something inside her told her otherwise. And so she had come.

A woman entered the room. She had a small face, with a small, sharp nose, and a small mouth, and had longish hair tied back into a ponytail. Very thin, she carried herself very gracefully, and when the woman in the chair looked up, she was taken aback. The woman’s eyes penetrated her own, laying bare all her hidden thoughts and fears and insecurities right there on the ground of that arid waiting room. Those eyes were large and brown and could penetrate lead.

“Come” the woman made a gesture, and left the room.

The other woman got up and followed her.

They walked out of the deadly waiting room, and moved into a much nicer house. There were paintings here, small watercolours of animals and women, and a sense of perfumed moistness in the air, which made everything pleasant.

Then they reached the door to a room. The door looked exactly like everything else in the house, mildly pleasant, with no ostentation about it.

The woman signalled to not be surprised, and opened the door and walked through. As soon as the door opened, the most remarkable change came over the other woman. Her eyes widened, and her mouth widened, and there was a sense of disbelief in her eyes. On the verge of tears, she ran into the open door, and gasped. The other woman was just standing to one side, watching. The woman dropped her pen and book, and just watched in total and utter disbelief what was in front of her. Right in front of her sat a boy, not older than ten, on a small chair. In his arms was cradled a guitar. And with an effortlessness that is impossible to have been achieved by someone his age, he was coaxing it to produce the most beautiful of sounds. Not complicated or complex, but just divine. The woman now had tears flowing down her cheeks, but she smiled, and then began to laugh. The boy was too deep into his music to pay any heed. She picked up her book and her pen, and furiously scribbled something into it, and showed it to the woman, who just stood watching from the side, completely passive.

“How? How is this possible?”

The woman just shrugged and shook her head. And then she gestured towards the boy, suggesting that she should ask him.

Before the woman could turn to the boy with the book, a small voice suddenly entered her head.

“It is possible because that is what it must be. God doesn’t decide what is impossible and what isn’t. You do.”

The music was still playing, and she took little time to figure out who it was. The boy showed no sign of having said anything, and his eyes were closed now, entrapped in the silken cocoon of his music.

She just shook her head, and closed her eyes too, the music running through her a very odd sensation, but at the same time it was remarkably comforting and beautiful. She just let herself go, trusting completely in the music and the sensation it created in her. Then she thought something, and was just going to reach out to her book and pen, when suddenly the voice entered her head again.

“Do it. It’s not so hard. Project your thought outward. Believe that impossible doesn’t exist.”

A little shaken for a second, she gasped. But then she realised that there was much she didn’t know and she had to try –

“Try not. There is no try.”

Now her jaw truly dropped. Where did such a child get such wisdom? The music was still passing through her, like a symbiotic organism. Then she suddenly realised something. The music wasn’t the same throughout. She hadn’t had any experience with music before this, but her primal instincts told her it was changing not with the boy’s mood, but her own. But shaking her head and throwing out these thoughts from her head, as all they did was bring more questions, she thought about an apple, and pushed it. She had no idea what pushing a thought meant, but she was relying on the music and her instincts, and then suddenly, her thought existed inside her, but she was aware of it also floating around her. And then equally suddenly, it was gone.

“It isn’t so hard is it?”

“No” she replied, at length.

She smiled and let all these new feelings envelop her. Usually she would have felt a deep sense of dread, but somehow, even though everything was alien, the music calmed and soothed her. Closing her eyes, she just trusted in it, and waited.

The other woman heard and felt nothing during the whole course of the intercourse between the boy and the other woman, but that didn’t bother her. Passively, she left the room. Only when she had closed the door behind her did she smile.

integrity

He looked out onto the street. The crossing was crowded, full of cars edging dangerously into each other. The air was a thick soup of noxious fumes, mixed with the urban cacophony of a thousand cars. He sat in the small tea shop, holding his little cup of steaming tea, and watching passively, as the cars barely managed to obey the rules of traffic. The tinny radio was blaring in the small, brightly lit, barely furnished tea room. The night was false outside; there was too much artificial light, a sea of pin pricks, marking the source of so many beams. He sipped his tea and thought of what would happen if he just sat there, and let the traffic take its own course. As the scalding brew washed down his throat, he already knew the answer. The cars would go wild, everyone would be selfish, everyone would want their own way. There would be chaos. He knew all of this, yet he let his mind wander on the different possibilities. Maybe, maybe just once, there might be a handful out there with integrity. Maybe there would be those who could stand against the crowd. With true souls. With the courage to see their own thing. And so every night, he came into this tea hut, pretending to leave the traffic to its own devices, just for a little while, hoping. But never had it happened. The same thing always happened. Chaos reigned. But he still came away every night.

And so tonight he watched, secretly, the tea going cold in his hands. The traffic waited, confused; like a blind dog who’s leash has been removed for the first time – an unrecognised freedom. Like every night. He still waited, waiting for the realisation to hit. Waiting for the first guys on the line to feel the raw unadulterated power that one feels when traffic laws no longer apply to them. And even from here, he could feel the tension build. But he did nothing. He just waited. And then everything happened too fast.

The tension reached a climax, and things suddenly went completely chaotic, like a sudden flash of lightning right in your face. But just before it happened, in a space of a thousandth of a heartbeat, a child ran across the road, a small little girl of no more than five. She had been waiting on the other side, aware of the tension, but oblivious to the magnitude, and so she ran, just a tiny instant before everything blew up. And from the small little tea hut on the side of the junction, he saw it all, but it rushed into his head like a number of sledgehammer hits, from a machine gun. Pinned him to his seat, and he watched chaos burst and then the small girl’s eyes wide open as she was simultaneously hit by three cars, tossed one way, and jarring into a car coming the other way, her body sickeningly stopped but her head kept going, and she was wrenched in half at her torso. He saw all this, and he was totally helpless. He was pinned in his seat, in the small little tea room, watching outside. He had seen a girl die. He had seen the wide eyes of the girl as she was wrenched in half. He had watched as chaos had burst. He had done nothing. And here he was, sitting in a small tea room, voyeuristically watching for someone with integrity, when he had none. The realisation hit him just then. He had let a girl die. He had killed someone. He could’ve saved her.

No, he thought bitterly, tears streaming softly down his cheeks and his heart suddenly going all black, I couldn’t have saved her. A man of integrity might have, I could not have.